This
symbol represents a real mystery: in fact it appears in very different
places and times. Its meaning is a mystery. Some researchers believe that
it is a "ritual course", confining it to the religious-mystic field. Other
say it may represent a human brain. But nobody of them is able to give
an explanation about its so great diffusion in the world and in times so
distant among them. Now let's see a brief list of the places in which the
labyrinth was found:

Carving
located on a block of granite discovered in England, known as "the Hollywood
stone"

Symbol
present on a clay tablet found in the ruins of the palace of King Nestor
in Pylos (Peloponnesus, Greece), dated 1200 BC

Carving
on a rock at Mogor (Marín, Pontevedra) - Spain

Carving
on a rock at Machu Picchu - Peru

Stone
track located in Rösaring, Scandinavia

Labyrinth reported by Oyvind

Rock
painting in Potash Temple at Tikla, Madhya Pradesh

Miniature
in an Armenian bible (1634) - representation of the city Jericho

A
NEW DISCOVERY

The national archeological
park of rupestrian inscriptions of Naquane at Capo di Ponte (in Lombardia,
Italy) offers one of the most important manifestations of rupestrian art
in the world; the engraved figures in this area haven't been completely
counted in a census, but their number is estimated to be in the range of
ten thousands. The inscriptions cover a very large period of time, that
starts from Epipaleolithic (about 10000 B.C.) to the Middle Ages. Over
one of these megaliths (at about the half of the Great Rock) there's
a symbol that at the first look seems equal to the labyrinth.

Photo of the labyrinth of Naquane

On guide-books the
following brief description is reported:LABYRINTH
(engraving N.5)The
engraving forms a meander, in which it's possible to follow a whole course,
from entrance to exit: then a labyrinth. It comes into one's mind,
on this subject, the legend of the Cretan king Minosse, that made to build
a labyrintine building, in which he could keep imprisoned the Minotaure,
a monster with a human body and a bull head, whom Teseo succeeded in killing
with the help of Arianna and of her thread. This labyrinth of Naquane is
placed on a more weak human figure. Some researchers attribute the labyrinth
to the ritual index of the agricultural world, connected in some way with
the seeding and harvest periods and, then, also with the solar cycles.
Another interpretation hooks this symbol to initiation courses. There are
remarkable analogies with images of the same type present in the Etruscan
world.

But
the most interesting thing is that there aren't only simple "analogies",
but the specular image of the engraving No.5 of the Great Rock is the EXACT
SOLUTION of the true labyrinth!

Outlineof the labyrinth of Naquane

What does it mean?
No one can say it. However this fact confirms the precise knowledge of
this symbol also in North Italy.

ALSO
IN EGYPT

This symbol really
seems to be know everywhere. One representation is visible also in the
temple of Kom Ombo, that is located on the river Nile about 50 Km north
of Aswan (Egypt). It can be found on the floor of a corridor posterior
to the temple, where priests waited for the ceremony. The guides tell that
this engraving, together with many others of various types which are in
this place, would work as games, because sometimes priests had to wait
even some days here.

Many thanks to Daniele
Zeri, who reported us via e-mail this labirynth and its photo.

A
POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION

Looking better at the
labyrinth and having present the description of the city of Atlantis furnished
by Plato in the Critia, it could be thought that it represents nevertheless
that the MAP of the aforesaid city! Let's see how one can arrive
at the following conclusion. First of all let's remember thewords
of Plato in this passage, extracted from Critia:"...On
this mountain had his abode one of the primordial men of that land, that
was born from the ground; his name was Evenor and he had a wife named Leucippe,
and they had an unique daughter, Cleito. The young girl was already
a woman when the father and the mother died; Poseidon fell in love with
her and had intercourses with her and, breaking the land, he surrounded
the hill, on which she lived, creating alternate areas of sea and of
ground, the one concentric to the others; there were two of them of ground
and three of water, circular as if processed at the lathe, having each
the circumference equidistant in every point from the center, in a
way that no one could come to the island, since ships and navigation didn't
still exist".

And more:"...( the sovereigns of Atlantis)
first of all constructed bridges over the rings of sea which surrounded
the ancient metropolis, and built a road that allowed to enter and leave
from the royal palace. And since the beginning they built the
palace in the abode of the god and of their ancestors, and they continued
to adorn it from generation to generation, since every king overcame, at
the apex of the glory, the one who had preceeded him, until making building
a wonder to see, both in amplitude and in beauty. And, departing
from the sea, they dug a canal three hundred feet wide, a hundred feet
deep, fifty stadiums long, which arrived to the outer area creating a passage
from the sea up to it that became a harbor; and the passage was wide
enough to allow the entrance at bigger ships. Additionally,
they opened
at the level of the bridges the rings of ground that separated the rings
of sea, creating a space sufficient for the passage of one trireme
at a time from a ring to the other and they covered these canals creating
an underground way for the ships; in fact the shores were raised of quite
a lot above the level of the water. Now the biggest of the areas,
which could be reached from the sea through this passage, had a width of
three stadiums and the area of ground that came after was likewise wide;
but the two following areas, the one of water, the other of ground, were
two stadiums wide and the one which surrounded the central island was only
one stadium wide. The island on which the palace rose had a diameter
of five stadiums..."

And now let's try to
elaborate the image of the labyrinth. Let's color alternatively the lines
of the labyrinth in blue (water) and in brown (ground), operating a small
modification at the center:

And now let's color
in brown all the figure (we expand the strips of ground), adding the large
canal mentioned by Plato that joined the rings to the sea:

Let's finally color
the various parts, in a way to highlight the areas of the city, described
in an accurate way by Plato in the Critia:

A - Principal ring of ground

E - Second harbor

B - Minor ring of groung

F - Great harbor

C - Citadel

G - Canal bringing to the sea

D - Internal harbor

H - Merchant quarter

If it really
were the map of the city of Atlantis, its great diffusion would mean the
presence, in the past, of notable links between the Atlantidean world and
the various populations, if not even astraight
breed of these last from Atlantis, after that it was destroyed from a dreadful
catastrophe.

Cretan
Coins (300-100 B.C.)

Images similar to the labyrinth are found
almost everywhere; here there's a carving that is located on a block of
basalt not far from the stone circle and from the heap cemetery at Cauldside
Burn, Kirkcudbright, in Scotland:

And now a "crop circle", of unknown origin,
the shape of which recalls the one of the labyrinth:

Basin stone located in a prehistoric tomb
at Knowth, Ireland:

Carving reported by Dean Davis

Other similar labyrinths are represented
here:

Photo of the labyrinth at Troy farm

Labyrinth of Julian's Bower, nearthe village of Alkborough (England)

If you want more infos
on labyrinths around the world, visit this site: